I had been off Linux for a few years but recently returned to arch. I didnt feel like mucking around with everything from scratch so I tried the included install script. Next thing I knew I was in a full xfce environment with everything working out of the box.
If arch can drop you in a full DE of your choosing, from an install script, what is the point of these other options? Genuinely wondering what's going on with them and if I should check them out.
I plan to go these route but to also bring in the Garuda repos and some tweaks they make. I am running Garuda right now and it works really well for gaming and I like some of their scripts, like garuda-update
So they're just desktop environment reskins? With sons basic config files changed? What's the point? You can download some packages and files any time from normal Arch for the same outcome.
These other arch distros usually come with pre-compiled kernels with special options for different platforms, repos with different package versions to offer some level of stability, custom scripts to manage services and updating, and their own config files for various things. It's pretty much what you do with regular arch but someone else is doing most of it for you.